White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack
by Peggy McIntosh
“I was taught to see racism only in individual acts of meanness,
not in invisible systems conferring dominance on my group”
DAILY EFFECTS OF WHITE PRIVILEGE
I decided to try to work on myself at least by identifying some of the daily effects of white privilege in my life. I have
chosen those conditions that I think in my case attach somewhat more to skin-color privilege than to class, religion, ethnic
status, or geographic location, though of course all these other factors are intricately intertwined. As far as I can tell, my
African American coworkers, friends, and acquaintances with whom I come into daily or frequent contact in this particular
time, place and time of work cannot count on most of these conditions.
1. I can if I wish arrange to be in the company of people of
my race most of the time.
2. I can avoid spending time with people whom I was
trained to mistrust and who have learned to mistrust my
kind or me.
3. If I should need to move, I can be pretty sure of renting
or purchasing housing in an area which I can afford and in
which I would want to live.
4. I can be pretty sure that my neighbors in such a
location will be neutral or pleasant to me.
5. I can go shopping alone most of the time, pretty well
assured that I will not be followed or harassed.
6. I can turn on the television or open to the front page of
the paper and see people of my race widely represented.
12. I can go into a music shop and count on finding the
music of my race represented, into a supermarket and find
the staple foods which fit with my cultural traditions, into a
hairdresser’s shop and find someone who can cut my hair.
13. Whether I use checks, credit cards or cash, I can
count on my skin color not to work against the appearance
of financial reliability.
14. I can arrange to protect my children most of the time
from people who might not like them.
15. I do not have to educate my children to be aware of
systemic racism for their own daily physical protection.
16. I can be pretty sure that my children’s teachers
and employers will tolerate them if they fit school and
workplace norms; my chief worries about them do not
concern others’ attitudes toward their race.
7. When I am told about our national heritage or about
“civilization,” I am shown that people of my color made it
what it is.
17. I can talk with my mouth full and not have people put
this down to my color.
8. I can be sure that my children will be given curricular
materials that testify to the existence of their race.
18. I can swear, or dress in second hand clothes, or not
answer letters, without having people attribute these
choices to the bad morals, the poverty or the illiteracy of
my race.
9. If I want to, I can be pretty sure of finding a publisher
for this piece on white privilege.
10. I can be pretty sure of having my voice heard in a
group in which I am the only member of my race.
11. I can be casual about whether or not to listen to
another person’s voice in a group in which s/he is the only
member of his/her race.
19. I can speak in public to a powerful male group without
putting my race on trial.
20. I can do well in a challenging situation without being
called a credit to my race.
21. I am never asked to speak for all the people of my
racial group.
Peggy McIntosh is associate director of the Wellesley Collage Center for Research on Women. This essay is excerpted from Working Paper
189. “White Privilege and Male Privilege: A Personal Account of Coming To See Correspondences through Work in Women’s Studies”
(1988), by Peggy McIntosh; available for $4.00 from the Wellesley College Center for Research on Women, Wellesley MA 02181. The
working paper contains a longer list of privileges. This excerpted essay is reprinted from the Winter 1990 issue of Independent School.
22. I can remain oblivious of the language and customs
of persons of color who constitute the world’s majority
without feeling in my culture any penalty for such oblivion.
35. I can take a job with an affirmative action employer
without having my co-workers on the job suspect that I got
it because of my race.
23. I can criticize our government and talk about how
much I fear its policies and behavior without being seen as
a cultural outsider.
36. If my day, week or year is going badly, I need not ask
of each negative episode or situation whether it had racial
overtones.
24. I can be pretty sure that if I ask to talk to the “person
in charge”, I will be facing a person of my race.
37. I can be pretty sure of finding people who would be
willing to talk with me and advise me about my next steps,
professionally.
25. If a traffic cop pulls me over or if the IRS audits my tax
return, I can be sure I haven’t been singled out because of
my race.
26. I can easily buy posters, post-cards, picture books,
greeting cards, dolls, toys and children’s magazines
featuring people of my race.
27. I can go home from most meetings of organizations I
belong to feeling somewhat tied in, rather than isolated,
out-of-place, outnumbered, unheard, held at a distance or
feared.
28. I can be pretty sure that an argument with a colleague
of another race is more likely to jeopardize her/his chances
for advancement than to jeopardize mine.
29. I can be pretty sure that if I argue for the promotion
of a person of another race, or a program centering on
race, this is not likely to cost me heavily within my present
setting, even if my colleagues disagree with me.
38. I can think over many options, social, political,
imaginative or professional, without asking whether a
person of my race would be accepted or allowed to do
what I want to do.
39. I can be late to a meeting without having the lateness
reflect on my race.
40. I can choose public accommodation without fearing
that people of my race cannot get in or will be mistreated
in the places I have chosen.
41. I can be sure that if I need legal or medical help, my
race will not work against me.
42. I can arrange my activities so that I will never have to
experience feelings of rejection owing to my race.
43. If I have low credibility as a leader I can be sure that
my race is not the problem.
30. If I declare there is a racial issue at hand, or there
isn’t a racial issue at hand, my race will lend me more
credibility for either position than a person of color will
have.
44. I can easily find academic courses and institutions
which give attention only to people of my race.
31. I can choose to ignore developments in minority
writing and minority activist programs, or disparage them,
or learn from them, but in any case, I can find ways to be
more or less protected from negative consequences of any
of these choices.
46. I can chose blemish cover or bandages in “flesh” color
and have them more or less match my skin.
32. My culture gives me little fear about ignoring the
perspectives and powers of people of other races.
48. I have no difficulty finding neighborhoods where
people approve of our household.
33. I am not made acutely aware that my shape, bearing
or body odor will be taken as a reflection on my race.
49. My children are given texts and classes which
implicitly support our kind of family unit and do not turn
them against my choice of domestic partnership.
34. I can worry about racism without being seen as selfinterested or self-seeking.
45. I can expect figurative language and imagery in all of
the arts to testify to experiences of my race.
47. I can travel alone or with my spouse without expecting
embarrassment or hostility in those who deal with us.
50. I will feel welcomed and “normal” in the usual walks
of public life, institutional and social.
Peggy McIntosh is associate director of the Wellesley Collage Center for Research on Women. This essay is excerpted from Working Paper
189. “White Privilege and Male Privilege: A Personal Account of Coming To See Correspondences through Work in Women’s Studies”
(1988), by Peggy McIntosh; available for $4.00 from the Wellesley College Center for Research on Women, Wellesley MA 02181. The
working paper contains a longer list of privileges. This excerpted essay is reprinted from the Winter 1990 issue of Independent School.